As a resident, it's possible to purchase reduced rate, preloaded train/tram passes. Carrie and I did this a few days after our arrival here. Last weekend we decided that we better check to see how much money, if any, that we still had left on our cards. After checking with someone at the train station, we found out that our cards were empty. We had already used all of our credit.
For Carrie this made sense since she is taking the tram to and from work everyday. For me though, it didn't make any sense. I asked the employee if they could look at my charges to determine if I was getting overcharged. We learned that I wasn't swiping my card properly which was resulting in me being charged the maximum for each trip I took. It also became clear that we were beginning to travel without properly paying.
Today I was traveling on the tram after viewing a prospective rental property. Shortly after the tram started moving, two 'tram ticket police' appeared and began checking for non-paying riders. Luckily for me, I was fine. I showed them my card, they swiped it into their portable machine and the officer said something to me in Dutch. He then smiled, gave me my card back and proceeded on to the next passenger. I simply smiled and said 'thank you' (in English)!
Thank god I wasn't stopped last week! :-|
Lesson learned... Make sure that I have Carrie's local work number on me at all times.... as I may someday be told 'Maam, you get one phone call....' by the tram ticket police!